The set of maps1 of the Syrian region reveals the development of a unique territorial political entity between 1730 and 1831 on the coast of Syria. It had originally expanded from Tiberias, but Acre soon became its permanent center. This entity always included the Galilee, the Jabal ‘Āmil region of the Metualis, and, at times, attached the Druze region to the north through alliances. Control over a coastal strip, extending first from Acre to Haifa and Sidon and stretching at its greatest extension from Gaza to Latakia, was essential to this political entity. At some occasions official appointments from Istanbul would extend the power of Acre even over the provinces of Damascus and Tripoli.
I have referred to this entity throughout as “Acre and its realm,” conscious of the fact that it did not coincide with any administrative borders and units of the Ottoman Empire, that its borders and spheres of influence shifted, and that the exercise of political power varied from familial consent and tribal cooperation to military subjugation and formal alliances. Even if the political structure, the borders, and the populations shifted and even if it would be misleading to speak of a “state,” a “kingdom,” or an “emirate,” Acre and its realm constituted during this period a major political force whose rulers came to dominate all its neighbors and to challenge on occasion even the authority of the empire.
Acre and its realm constituted a unique territorial and political entity—often independent but never sovereign—that did not exist before and was never to emerge again. Was the development of Acre and its realm the start of a new order or only the end of an old one? Can we trace the beginnings of modernity here, or do we recognize only variations of traditional patterns? Or both? The sustained rise and unavoidable fall of Acre and, even more so, the unique shape of its realm point to more than the whim of an individual ruler or the change of a dynasty. Acre’s short century of prominence is testimony of a period of profound transformations. As we have seen, its creation was due to a specific set of circumstances. The weakness of the central government reached a particular nadir in the second half of the eighteenth century, and, concomitantly, various local forces strove for local political, communal, or territorial autonomy. In the case of Acre these tendencies would find support and reinforcement through shifting trade patterns. The raw-material needs of European industrialization and the rising demand of the French market for cotton from the Galilee converted Acre and its realm into the first economy in the eastern Mediterranean based on the export of cash crops. Thus in Acre the rising export trade provided the economic basis for localist ambitions to become more pronounced and develop faster than in Damascus or Egypt. But as always in history, the mere existence of conditions for the development of new political or economic opportunities does not guarantee their realization.
Here, Ẓāhir al-‘Umar played a particular role as a merchant turned political ruler. Acre and its realm came into existence because he realized the economic opportunities that he could exploit by exerting political control over the region. He used political power to enhance his own role in the export business and established in the process a monopoly control over the cotton export which, in turn, increased his political might. In this he was very similar to Muḥammad ‘Alī, who, two generations later in Egypt, also understood that the relations between state and economy could consist of much more than the traditional taxation or the confiscation of agricultural surplus production. Both had seen that through the interference of the state or the ruler the productive forces of the economy could be enhanced together with the profits from commerce; and that such increased economic activity was a better base for a stronger state than just increased extortions from the primary producers. Both used their growing political power to interfere even more in the economy and manipulate it through the instrument of monopolies. Interestingly, both Ẓāhir al-‘Umar and Muḥammad ‘Alī came from commercial backgrounds and careers before they entered politics and became rulers. Perhaps herein lies the reason for their economic policies, which were so distinctly different from that of their contemporaries wielding political power.
Yet the differences between Ẓāhir al-‘Umar and Muḥammad ‘Alī should not be overlooked. Ẓāhir al-‘Umar limited his efforts to increasing the cultivation of cotton and to attracting peasant immigrants to his realm. This he tried to do by providing law and order, security, and a reasonable tax burden—or even tax abatement for newly cultivated land. We have no evidence that he actually forced peasants to grow cotton, though the financial incentive must have been obvious. Two generations later Muḥammad ‘Alī took much more far-reaching steps to enhance production by introducing new crops and better strains, by vastly improving the infrastructure of Egypt, and last but not least by initiating changes in the patterns of ownership and control over land. While Ẓāhir al-‘Umar had been satisfied to exploit the new opportunities of cash-crop exports to the European markets with quantitative changes in production, well within the range of traditional experience, Muḥammad ‘Alī took unprecedented measures in initiating qualitative changes in production.
We observed earlier how strong the tendency in the Ottoman Empire toward local autonomy was during the eighteenth century. In itself this was not a new pattern or political formation, since weakness in the center has always provoked centrifugal forces at the periphery. It would certainly be erroneous to speak here of an early national awakening, of a new Arab or Palestinian identity or the rise of new social classes. The assertion of local autonomy almost always sought to obtain legitimacy by acknowledging the suzerainty of the sultan, regardless of the fact that disobedience to orders from Istanbul frequently prevailed. The ambivalent character of this drive to autonomy from Istanbul has been discussed earlier. Its limits were fluid and it only occasionally turned into open rebellion. The active collaboration of the Mamluks of Egypt and Ẓāhir al-‘Umar with the Russian fleet against the Ottoman government introduced a new element into the eastern Mediterranean, where since the end of the Crusades Europeans had not had any but a commercial presence. This shortlived collaboration announced a new European political and military presence in the region, which would become manifest with the French invasion of Egypt and Palestine.
Seemingly the autonomy we talked of was realized in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire in strictly traditional forms of political rule: local strongmen, attempts at establishing a dynasty, tribal alliances, and Mamluk elites. All these were patterns of political power long familiar in Muslim lands. Of course, society as well as the ruling elite subscribed to an Islamic world view. The major mosque of Acre, built by Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār, reflected this order, and the mere fact that Christians constituted, most probably, the majority of the population in Acre did not put this into question. The Christians, too, accepted it. It was an unselfconscious Islam, accepted and unquestioned, which is also why we hear so little about it during this time. Only toward the end of the period, with the encroachment of the Wahhabis on Damascus and the beginning of the Greek uprising, did inter-religious tensions arise and the Islamic character of the government and of society become transformed into a conscious issue, antiminority measures being used to legitimize an otherwise weak government. When, just two generations later, Mishāqa observed sardonically that Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār did not discriminate between Christians and Muslims but oppressed, tortured, and, occasionally, killed all evenhandedly, he spoke as someone who had witnessed intense religious strife and the growth of fanaticism.
One feature in particular played into the hands of Ẓāhir al-‘Umar and his successors as they tried to exert political control over the economy and the exports of ever more cash crops: urban society in Acre consisted almost exclusively of immigrants. Its structural coherence was weak, and it was faced from the beginning by a relatively strong government, enjoying the benefits of control over commerce and parts of the economy.
Ruling elites in Acre differed in one important aspect from traditional ones: the ever-increasing European demand for raw cotton, and later wheat, provided an enormous source of income for them. The rigorous application and untraditional extent of economic control increased the flow of revenues to the ruling elite to an extent previously unknown. The imbalance between a strong, economically well-based ruling elite and the population was increased further by the uncommon weakness of societal structure. The urban society of Acre with which the rulers had to deal had come into existence only as a result of Ẓāhir al-‘Umar’s economic activities. Consisting almost entirely of immigrants, it had not developed any strong social structures. Distinct commercial and religious elites were missing and were prevented from developing; the same was true for the organization of guilds.
We can observe a distortion of traditional patterns of political and social structure leading to a most unusual concentration of power in the hands of the elites and the stunted development of social structures and economic forces within society. In a way, the developments of Acre and its realm foreshadowed what was to become typical for the development of the state in the Middle East during the nineteenth century: the strengthening of the ruling powers and an expansion of the functions of the state. But in Acre in the eighteenth century these developments were lacking the new social classes or the institutions that could support them. The integration of the eastern Mediterranean into the European economy and the shift of economic and political gravity from inland to the coast, first expressed in the rise of Acre, were to continue during the nineteenth century, but Acre would not be a part of it any longer. The untraditional concentration of political power and economic control which had led to the early rapid success of the attempt to reap the benefits of an integration into the European world markets also turned out to be an obstacle to the development of truly new social and economic patterns able to cope with the new world order. Other places, such as Beirut, were soon to take over from Acre.